


Five Times is Enough

by Timpeni



Category: Dangan Ronpa, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: M/M, Major SDR2 Spoilers, endgame spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-23
Updated: 2013-08-23
Packaged: 2017-12-24 09:55:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/938577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Timpeni/pseuds/Timpeni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hinata meets Komaeda five times. Hinata can't meet Komaeda once.</p><p>Hinata sometimes wishes the 'last time' will come.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times is Enough

The first time he saw him was in the airport.

He was holding onto his mother’s hand. His father was coming back after a brief stint in America.

It was routine. He was used to standing behind the large glass wall - like all the others, waiting for someone familiar to walk by, retrieve their luggage from the conveyer belt and wave as they reunited again in a whirl of tears and exclamations.

But, as all stories go, something has to happen.

So, something odd happened.

People began to scream, and amongst hushed whispers, with an outstretched finger on some hands, one of the large glass panels was pointed out. His mother turned her head and gasped, before pulling him away from the incriminating window.

He wouldn’t have that. He flailed against her grip and stuck his head out, looking for gaps within the panicked crowd to see out the _window-_

There was a clear view of reddened flames.

He had seen airplanes before; he’d been in them, too. But he had never seen one on with its head on _fire,_ just _narrowly_ streaming into the runway before firetrucks-on-standby pulled up and sprayed it with foam urgently, like cascading soap, smothering anyone who was still trapped in the front-

He wasn’t young. He was already eight. He knew what was happening. It didn’t comfort him.

It was in a daze that he stared, until a vague smile with a jaw similar to his flashed. Immediately, he fumbled for his (toy) cellphone, before he noticed his mother’s hand trembling, white, fisted over the phone she held to her ear. He latched onto her arm, waiting, a gaping horror crawling from his stomach, making him nauseous. _Thank god, you’re okay,_ he heard her say, and it was only then that the sea of panic calmed inside him.

Still, he kept close to his mother as the masses rushed past him. _We would like to request all to stay calm. I repeat, please stay calm. We have the situation under control,_ the announcer said coolly. _Plane A340, headed towards Shizuoka Airport, had been hijacked after its departure. Thankfully, the hijackers were subdued. As the closest airport, the pilots of A340 have made an emergency landing at Tokyo Airport. This may cause delays. We apologize for the inconvenience._

(He would never learn that the hijackers were ‘subdued’ by a stray meteor.)

Everyone was instructed to make way for the survivors, especially those in stretchers rushing to the hospital. _The surviving passengers will be taken through the closest exit, Terminal 3 Gate 8._ He stuck by his mother’s side the entire time while she kept herself on the line with his father, updating each other, back and forth, about the situation from where they were.

Sure enough, they began to stream through. Most could walk, seemingly completely unhurt, either stumbling ahead aimlessly or speaking on the cellphone with wet eyes. Some were rolled out by people in white clothes. Whenever they came close, his mother would cover his eyes.

Then, there was a special one.

He didn’t walk out alone; he was surrounded by men in black suits. They strode in unison, keeping him hidden from sight the majority of the time. Briefly, a gap opened up in the wall of black.

That was when he saw a boy, skin far too pale, swollen red around light green eyes.

He watched the boy for a second more before the boy was led away, but he knew that the boy saw him too.

But the moment the boy was out of sight, his father ran through the doors and locked him and his mother in a relieved, giddy embrace.

So, he forgot about it.

\---

The second time he saw him was in convoluted hallways.

_He’s here, isn’t he? No, he’s here. He’s… not here. Damn it, where is Matsuda Yasuke?_

There were a million things he wanted to desperately ask as he attempted navigating the empty hallways, alone. Then, the bell rang, and the hallway was no longer empty.

Certainly, SHSLs were not tardy in leaving the classroom. The doors slammed open one after the other, and students spilled onto the tiled floors, carrying bags, books, some absolutely absurd things he tried not to question or nothing at all.

He edged to the side involuntarily, trying to seem as invisible as possible. Staring at the slim stack of paper in his hands, he tried to hide the fact that _oh hey reserve department student here I have no idea how these fucking hallways work doot doot coming through._ He wouldn’t be Reserve Department for much longer, though; he just needed to find… the goddamn… office-

As he walked, he searched for anything, _anything_ that would ring a bell-

A boy wandered through the hallway at a much slower speed, wearing a long jacket that almost touched the floor.

He stopped in his tracks and looked past the white, messy hair the boy had, and tried to look at his face.

The boy had skin far too pale around light green eyes.

He blinked.

The boy had exited to the courtyard. Tentatively, he began to follow him. His throat was dry. _He was desperate, wasn’t he? It didn’t matter._ Caught unaware, the boy had already moved on to another building, pristine albeit frayed amidst the newly constructed area. He felt awkward following a stranger, but somehow, he felt he could trust him. The hallways here were straight and narrow. Maybe if he asked the boy about it…

“Hey, um-”

Before he could say anything else, the boy turned left and walked into a room. The door closing in front of him, he was left with his right hand half-outstretched, mouth open, and a million things left unsaid.

He shook his head, shrugged, and looked at the papers he’d unconsciously crumpled as he trailed after the boy.

Matsuda Yasuke’s room… was right next to the one the boy entered.

Strange. So they were both going into hospital rooms?

\---

The third time he saw him-

(Did _he_ really see him?)

\- was in the damp underbelly of a ship.

_It was so boring. So frightfully boring._

He enjoyed the rocking of the boat, at least. It was strange, how delightful he found unpredictability to be.

Of course, soon, he managed to figure out a pattern.

And he was bored again.

“Do you like boats?”

The boy spoke.

He turned to face the boy.

“Sorry, you looked like you were enjoying yourself, so I wondered… do you like boats?”

His eyes flicked disinterestedly. He answered casually, feeling the floor move once more.

 _It was almost like playing tennis against a wall._ The boy threw back his arm and struck the ball with all his might every time, narrowly missing it every now and then; and he responded by holding out his paddle and letting the ball hit it and bounce back, without even caring if it was hit back, over the net.

That was their conversation.

_What a boring conversation._

“Hi… I’m Komaeda Nagito... You know… I guess I really am lucky-”

The ball bounced again. He found minute pleasure in the reaction he gave him upon realizing his talent to gain talents, but that was it.

He had returned to boring, idle chatter. The ball started bouncing again. But as he continued, somehow, there were embers smoldering. His goals… perhaps, once there was an unpredictable obstacle-

His goals were close to completion. And the end would be boring.

“Something’s… strange…oh? Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh? Ah, look outside that window. We must have arrived!”

…

_It was so boring._

_So utterly boring._

He tried to give the most unpredictable answers to the boy, but the boy only responded with what he thought the boy would. In the end, he was left with a sour aftertaste, regretful, even more bored than before.

He spoke one last sentence before ending the conversation.

“There is no point in meeting again, as you are… boring… your talents, your thoughts, all are boring to me…”

The boy smiled.

“That’s a bit cold.”

\---

The ~~fourth~~ first time he saw him was on the beach, framed by the sky.

“Hey, are you alright? …You sure look exhausted. I am too, you know. We all are. I mean… with all the crazy stuff that happened…”

…

“…Hey, are you listening?”

He forces himself awake, struggling to keep his eyes open. He pushes himself up with both hands, sand getting stuck to his palms.

“…You _are_ okay, right?” the boy asks again.

“…I… Just leave me alone.”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly leave someone who looks as sick as you alone.”

He grunts in frustration, putting his sandy palm on his forehead. He was supposed to be at Hope’s Peak Academy.

_Hope’sPeakHope’sPeakHope’sPeak-_

He was supposed to be walking in the hallways that he’d been worshipping for _so, so_ long- why is he _here?_

_Why?_

“We really should introduce ourselves, shouldn’t we?”

He carefully wipes away the grains that had fallen near his eyes, trying to focus on the boy in front of him, despite the chaos of screaming anger (despair) in his head. He supposes that, if this boy is stuck here with him, then, at least he’s not alone.

“…Pleased to meet you. My name is Komaeda Nagito.”

Komaeda seems a bit wishy-washy. But he doesn’t look like a bad person. The fact that anyone would even bother trying to wake him up while they were stuck in this sort of situation surprised him. That’s how he knew.

“Oh. My name is Hajime Hinata.”

Komaeda asks for his SHSL. Of course. His SHSL is…

…

He shivers from the emptiness now dominating his head, and Komaeda notices. He asks what’s wrong, and Hinata just shakes his head, and says he can’t remember.

Komaeda says it’s fine and beams at him. It comforts Hinata that the boy is fine with it…

… _I guess._

After a bit of talking, an aggravating rabbit pops out of absolutely nowhere and practically starts throwing shiny blue gems at them. Normally, Hinata would be fine with being showered in precious jewels. Perhaps if he wasn’t in an unstable mental state and the turmoil had returned and- these things were called ‘Hope Shards’?

Komaeda basically invites himself to tag along with Hinata. He supposes that he should be thankful, at least, that there’s someone willing to deal with his amnesiac bullshit.

…He wonders if anyone of the others will.

Komaeda proves a very interesting companion. He basically saves his ass when he almost calls that gangster ‘baby face’. Sometimes he makes a few creepy suggestions, but otherwise he’s fine, Hinata thinks.

More than fine, actually. He’s his first friend on this island, and Hinata hopes he isn’t annoying him already.

(He doesn’t know that Komaeda would never even _dream_ of Hinata considering him a friend at this point, of course.)

Then, a bear appears, and this entire world he’d just begun to accept, to start constructing, is turned upside down.

_~~Again.~~ _

The Heir proposes a party, and none of them are in a position to disagree. Because, even if the bear wants everyone to kill each other… no one will. Because they are _friends_ , so, it’ll be safe.

(And he still believes so, even after blood stains the floor, all the way until a hollow laugh escapes from Komaeda’s lips.)

\---

The ~~last~~ second time he saw him, the boy was the one to find Hinata.

His doorbell rang.

Hinata didn’t want to answer it.

“Hi, Hinata.”

“Ko-Komaeda?!”

 _Komaeda is smart._ Hinata had to hand it to him. Dangerously smart, in fact. Their plan to restrain him has already failed, because it looks like he’s already figured it out.

 _No, wait…_ Komaeda had been studying him the entire time. Hinata just confirmed his suspicions.

Oh.

_Oh._

“I assume you can’t have a major role on whatever’s going to happen, but I’d like you to come along to the lobby, too.”

Komaeda can’t be called smart for that, because it was painfully obvious.

“As you’re the only Super High School Level Nothing, you couldn’t hope to try and mix with the other kids.”

Hinata felt like Komaeda had just twisted his neck and pulled out his tongue.

That was fine. Of course, it was _absolutely fine._ It was fine to look at the shattered pieces of his dignity and pride from being ‘enrolled’ in the prestigious _Hope’s Peak Academy_ and realizing painfully that he was only a Reserve Department student. It was fine to pick up those shattered pieces and stab him right in the throat with them, to rip his vocal cords to shreds and leave him speechless to wallow in his own blood and self-pity.

Absolutely fine.

“…”

“Hey, I’m just messing with you. Don’t look so scary.”

“Your jokes… kinda piss me off.”

 _How astonishingly eloquent, Hinata Hajime,_ he thinks to himself bitterly. He wonders why no one’s killed him yet. It would have been far more useful to keep someone else, someone far more talented, alive than him.

_…Komaeda’s thoughts were getting to him, weren’t they?_

“Anyway... let’s hurry toward the lobby. I’m not sure what you guys have in store for me, so I’m actually looking forward to it a little.”

“…”

“Come on, let’s go! We used to go around together all the time when we first got here, remember?”

“…Fine, let’s go.”

The entire walk to the lobby is less of a walk, and more of a slow descent into ~~despair~~ a crumbling dust bunny. Each step seemed to wear away at his seams, and he felt like a fragile sand structure, his own will leaking onto the floor.

Hinata is sure, quite sure, that he’s the only one aside from Nanami that still treats Komaeda like a human being. But even he’s gradually pulling away from that, and well… Nanami is Nanami. She tries to treat everyone equally.

_Komaeda… how much of him is real? How much of him is a lie?_

Hinata is still terrified by the prospect that someone can lie to you their entire life about how they feel, what they think and who they _are_ and you might never, ever know.

 _Tell me,_ he pleaded, silent. _Tell me how I should react to being completely betrayed and made use of._

_Komaeda had always used him, right?_

There was no other explanation. Komaeda simply considered him a pawn; especially after realizing he had no talent. He was demoted to a stepping-stone towards hope, just like him. And not his own hope, but the other’s. His classmates. The real talents. The real hope.

Hinata stood in front of the lobby door.

“What’s wrong, what are you so worried about?”

“I’m… not worried…”

“Ahahah… you really are a terrible actor. Alright, I’ll go in first.”

Hinata feels a surge of resentment at that, and he can’t help but enjoy the notion that Komaeda might be getting his just desserts. But at the same time, he feels sorry for him.

…Is he? Has his entire ‘friendship’ with Komaeda been him feeling _sorry?_ He trusted Komaeda, had faith in him, and the boy went ahead to gut that trust and kill it dead.

Even so, Hinata can’t find the will to degrade Komaeda to nothing. Because he was the first ‘friend’ Hinata made in this hellhole.

He can’t let him off, though. Instead of throwing Komaeda away… maybe he could become more of a watchdog. He definitely doesn’t want him to _die,_ but…

Well.

Hinata grabs Komaeda’s arm, preventing him from entering the door.

(This is where the event changes.)

“…Yes, Hinata?” Komaeda asked.

Hinata glowers at the face with skin far too pale around light green eyes, and-

“I had faith in you! Tell me it wasn’t for nothing!”

“…What do you mean, Hina-”

Hinata presses his forehead against Komaeda’s, forcing the words out, guttural as they are in his throat. “If you know they’re going to capture you, why do you even bother talking to them? You can just run away!”

The boy doesn’t answer with words.

Komaeda jerks away.

“I’m sorry,” Komaeda said, smiling gently (but his eyes are empty). “I can’t run away. I still have a duty to do… for the sake of hope!”

“Why…? Why you?!”

“I’ve already done all this, Hinata. I can’t back out now, can I? If so, I’ll just be SHSL Sore Loser…”

The boy turns away, walking towards the lobby again. Hinata feels his heart drop to his feet, then forces himself to step on it while he tails him from behind.

Komaeda opens the large doors, smile still on his face.

Hinata makes a promise to himself. He won’t let Komaeda get his way.

(Komaeda doesn’t get his way, in the end. But Hinata didn’t exactly want to see Nanami get crushed to death with a huge tetris block, either.)

\---

The sixth time he sees him, he can’t.

The boy is dead.

“A body has been discovered! After a brief period of investigation, the school trial will begin!”

The reaction of the few remaining is just as mortified as his own. But it feels dull. Like he’s staring at it through a glass wall, routine.

“Komaeda… is really dead?!”

“And one of us killed him…!”

“It’s… starting again, isn’t it? The school trial…”

He investigates the body first, quiet.

Nanami’s very good at pointing out inconsistencies. She basically conducts the entire process, spotting one oddity after the other.

Hinata stares at Komaeda’s horrified expression.

She tears off the tape, at one point. It does look like Komaeda passed on mid-scream. Before she placed it back over his mouth, Souda yelled something about Komaeda potentially cursing Nanami postmortem.

“Should we go investigate his room…?”

“Wait… let me check something else, first,” Hinata says. Nanami nods and walks off to chat with Sonia and Akane in the corner. Kuzuryuu and Souda stand as far away as possible, neither of them in his immediate line of sight.

He crouched over the body, grimacing, head hurting and joints weak.

“…It must’ve hurt,” Hinata muttered to no one in particular, reaching out to Komaeda’s face.

The boy had skin far too pale around light green eyes.

He drew Komaeda’s eyelids shut, alleviating some of the terror from the boy’s ghastly face.

“Goodbye.”

\---

There won’t ever be a real ‘last time’ to whenever he sees him.

For someone who talks about hope so much, he really does bring a lot of despair.

Hinata fears that, maybe, in his fragile state, the boy might just _die_ before he wakes up. He’s quite sure that Komaeda’s good luck will pull through before that happens, but…

He taps on the glass, and Komaeda lies still.

“…They say that people sometimes hear things in their coma,” Hinata suddenly blurts, after sitting in silence for too long. Apparently, it’s quite therapeutic (according to Kuzuryuu, who spends double the amount of time waiting for Pekoyama to wake). Instead, he just feels antsier and antsier, the stillness of the room deliberately wrapping around his neck like a cord.

He just wants something to happen. At least a sign.

“And… well… Kuzuryuu’s been reading to Pekoyama this entire time,” he continues, not quite convinced the boy can hear him. “And… he’s gone through the entire Narnia series. He’s trying to find more interesting books, but, there’s not really much…”

He thought that Komaeda’s eyelid twitched, but when he looked again, nothing seemed to have moved. “You… told me you just wanted someone’s care, right?”

“Do you feel lonely? Even in a coma?”

“…”

“I think I would…”

Hinata laid his head on the glass, wondering if the bubbles coming from the boy’s mouth were actually desperate words, maybe - a million things left unsaid.

“Did you… think I was the traitor?” He whispered, as if afraid the others in their comatose state could hear him. “It’s been nagging in my mind, but… did you think I was the traitor? I mean, the SHSL Nothing was most likely the least plausible candidate for SHSL Despair, right?”

He waited for a response.

…

“I guess I’m just being selfish now,” Hinata shrugged, laughing it off. “I’ll be going, then… it’s getting late.”

He walked to the door, and then he stopped.

(He was holding onto his mother’s hand.)

“If you… actually can hear me… I trusted you.”

(Strange. So they were both going into hospital rooms?)

“If I ever scared you off, I’m sorry, though you probably scared me first, but…”

(It was so boring. So frightfully boring.)

Hinata stood in front of the door, playing with the knob, hesitant.

(“…Hey, are you listening?”)

He ran back to the pod, breathing ragged. He tapped on the glass again, bending over and pressing his forehead to the cold, transparent surface, suppressing the trembling of his hands. _He sees-_

(The doorbell rang.)

“Please wake up soon.”

(The boy is dead.)

**Author's Note:**

> prompt given by wansuke17.tumblr.com  
> who was also my beta  
> who editted everything  
> thank u. u suck  
> goodbye friends i am gone


End file.
